SHANGHAI

Day 1:

We woke up and got off the boat pretty early, relative to other ports. Since there were less of us “in transit”, there were less passports and bodies to get through customs. I walked out of port with four others that were “in transit” and, after walking around trying to find an ATM, we hopped in a cab in an attempt to find a specific water market that we had heard of. I have no idea how to spell the name of the market but it had a lot of X’s and Z’s in it, if anyone’s been here. It was about an hour away from port but it would have taken a lot longer had we not had the driver we did. He cut in and out on the freeway, driving fast and scary- it was a bit disconcerting. We passed through the city of Shanghai, as well as the suburban areas surrounding it, and were amazed at the sheer immensity of it all. Typically in a large city, the buildings are all massively tall and clustered. In Shanghai, some are close together, but many are a block or so apart and go on forever, so that it looks like the highest skyline spans for the entire country. We passed sets of apartment buildings- five identical skyscrapers in a row, with laundry hanging out the window, that clearly houses the incredible population that China accommodates. We had no idea that our destination was over an hour away, so the one girl that spoke a little Mandarin kept asking how much longer. Even she had no idea what he was saying in response so we just went with it. We ended up getting there, but we’re lucky that the taxi fares are cheap. The water market consists of streets upon streets of tourist goods, restaurants, and local shops on either side of a river. Small waterways wind through the shops, which create the need for decorative, authentic bridges. We saw maybe two or three white people the entire time that we were there. There were definitely souvenir, tourist shops, but I got that feeling that those were for Chinese from other parts of the country. It was a very authentic experience and going in the shops that were for locals was very interesting. The grocery store really blew my mind because, in a way, it was very similar to ours. However, it had bins and bins to scoop jello-candies and aisles of food I had never seen or heard of. Dried cucumbers, anyone? We walked around and shopped, finding that people were speaking the truth when they said to do all your shopping in China. At one point, I was bargaining with a woman over a necklace. She kept telling me that it was her lowest price ever because I was the most beautiful girl she had ever seen. I asked her if she told all her customers that. She dropped her Asian accent a good amount and responded “yeah- gotta make a buck”. My friend and I couldn’t stop laughing and ended up talking with the woman for a while. We appreciated the honesty and ended up buying the necklace. We went to an extremely local restaurant for lunch- we were stared at and we stared right back when we were handed the menu with no pictures, solely in Mandarin. After a few confusing exchanges, she handed us a torn, brown menu that had some English on it. There was clearly only one of these in the restaurant and it had not been used for some time. We ordered hot and sour soup, which had mushrooms and most agreed, was terrible. We also had a bowl of spicy tofu, which I really liked, and egg fried rice, that was fresh and amazing. We headed back to the ship to drop off our things and immediately head out to explore the Bund. The Bund is the waterfront that houses many shops, restaurants, and monuments. We walked along, mainly focusing on the bright buildings across the water. Shanghai is similar to Hong Kong in that it has such a variety of architecture. There is one building that is a straight needle with three spheres on top of each other. They are bright pink in the daytime and have a type of organized light show at night. One sphere is a restaurant, one is an observation room, and I’m not sure about the other. A joke between a few friends about me is my obsession with the babies that we have seen on the trip. For some reason, the African and Asian babies are, in my eyes, so much more adorable than most white babies. (Adoption might have to happen). Every time I see one, I stop and try to play with them. Often, the parents look at me with fear, but sometimes it works. Hong Kong had so many babies, that it was quite overwhelming. We’ve heard in class about how their child population drastically outweighs the elderly, which poses a population growth problem. However, I had no idea how apparent it would be. In Shanghai, as we were walking along the Bund, I was approached by a mother who wanted me to hold her son and take a bunch of pictures. It was pretty funny because they had just been making fun of my borderline inappropriate obsession. I think that she requested my contact because I was the only blonde as far as you could see in every direction, and probably farther. We kept walking and came upon an underground market, selling trinkets and fake goods. I talked to the woman for a while about her purses, but didn’t see any I liked, so I asked for more. She asked “More?” I said, “Yes, do you have more?” With that, she grabbed my hand and pressed one of the walls, leading me into a tiny, dark waiting room. I asked her to wait, and went out again to grab a boy to come with me, just in case. I returned to the little waiting room and then she pressed another door within it that led us to a room lined with designer bags, purses, wallets, and suitcases. The whole hidden, secret room with fake purses is pretty common but the darkness and sketchiness of this whole situation in particular freaked me out a little bit. After I picked one out and bargained my little heart out (she told me that I was breaking her heart and starving her family- yeah, right), I asked her why her hidden room was different from the rest. She told me that most of the purses are knockoffs, but these ones were real and stolen. I compared this purse in particular back at the ship to real ones that girls have from home and fake ones that others had bought and its definitely real. I’m pretty excited to say that I got a $600 Tory Burch bag for about $22. We had a long dinner with hilarious conversation and made our way back to the boat. My friends got ready to go out but I decided that I still wasn’t 100% and I stayed in. Taking it easy has not been my mentality on this trip in the slightest but I really want to be completely healthy for Japan. I, instead, joined a few girls that live down the hall and went to a pub around the corner to just sit and hangout. These girls had bought so much in China- I couldn’t believe it. One had bought 8 pairs of UGGs, one had bought 14 Tory Burch bags, and many had bought tons of cashmere sweaters. I came back and before going to bed, organized my whole room.

Day 2:

Lauren and I woke up early to go to the Volkswagon Factory for a FDP (class-mandated field trip). We got to the bus and found out that it had been canceled, so we grabbed our computers and went with a few others to a café to get Internet. They had to sign up for classes and I wanted to look mine over in preparation of signing up next week. There we found out that all social media sites in China are blocked- Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc. We stayed for a while and then made our way to a big knockoff market. The market is the biggest in Shanghai- it’s ridiculous and something that every shopaholic needs to put on their bucket list. It’s about a square mile in width of 5 stories. Anything and everything is offered and the bargaining is ruthless. There were many, many more secret rooms but it was less scary than the one the day before. The only way to get the price to the lowest possible is to almost have a yelling match, so it’s a very stressful environment. I felt a little bit bad about shouting at strangers that were trying to sell me stuff, but it’s just the culture there. If you walk away in an effort to find a better deal, they literally follow you and grab your arm quite forcefully and bring you back to make a lower offer. I ended up getting a bunch of gifts that I’m very excited about- but the whole day was just nonstop craziness. There were a lot of things to look out for- for example, all the Rosetta Stone sets were for Mandarin language with stickers over the language title with Spanish, English, Russian, Dutch, etc. Lauren headed back to the boat for another FDP and I stayed with two other girls that we had run into. One of them, Christine, had an internship in Shanghai last summer and speaks Mandarin so she showed us around for the rest of the day. We went to lunch and got ice cream before hopping on the subway to another underground market. This one was nicer, and primarily made up of individual shops. The bargaining was less aggressive but the goods were nicer. We bought a good amount of stuff- I didn’t want to spend too much money but I bought into the mindset that I might not be here ever again and the prices were too hard to pass up. I still feel a little bad about it but I know that I’ll be okay with it when my friends have the best Christmas ever. We took the subway back to the ship and got onboard just in time.

My China experience was probably not as outrageous as some of the kids on the ship. Unfortunately, I didn’t see Steve Aoki (yes, he played in Beijing) or toboggan down the Great Wall, but those are just more reasons to return. I am extremely excited to come back and do everything that I missed but, in the short term, I can’t wait for Japan. I have a midterm this afternoon to redo the one that I slept through and then tomorrow will be spent in class and planning Japan- the next morning we’re in Kobe. We’re backpacking from Kobe to Yokohama with most of the time spent in Tokyo. Can’t wait! I’m happy and healthy and everything is perfect onboard the MV Explorer! Happy early birthday, mama!